nor be dismayed: for the LORD God, even my God, is with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee, until all the work for the service of the house of the LORD be finished. 21And, behold, there are the courses of the priests and the Levites, for all the service of the house of God: and there shall be with thee in all manner of work every willing man that hath skill, for any manner of service: also the captains and all the people will be wholly at thy commandment.
29And David the king said unto all the congregation, Solomon my son, whom alone God hath chosen, is yet young and tender, and the work is great: for the palace is not for man, but for the LORD God. 2Now I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God the gold for the things of gold, and the silver for the things of silver, and the brass for the things of brass, the iron for the things of
be finished] The LXX. shows that a passage which was present in the Heb. text of the second century has been later accidentally omitted from the Heb. at this point. Add therefore Now behold the pattern of the porch of the temple and of the houses thereof, and of the treasuries thereof, and of the upper rooms thereof, and of the inner chambers thereof, and of the house of the mercy-seat, even the pattern of the house of the Lord. Torrey, Ezra Studies, pp. 73, 87.
21. every willing man that hath skill] Cp. Ex. xxxv. 5, 10 ff.
Ch. XXIX. 1-5. David's Challenge to Liberality.
1. congregation] or, assembly; the Hebrew word is cognate to the verb translated assembled in xxviii. 1.
whom alone God hath chosen] Cp. xxviii. 5.
the palace] Heb. bīrāh, a late word in Hebrew, perhaps derived from Assyrian bīrtu. Ordinarily it denoted a palace or fortress (cp. Neh. i. 1; Est. i. 2), and is applied to the Temple only here and ver. 19. In Neh. ii. 8 (cp. Ryle in loco) the building which afterwards became the Tower of Antonia (ἡ παρεμβολή, the castle, Acts xxi. 37, xxii. 24) which overlooked the Temple is called the castle (bīrāh) which appertaineth to the house. In Neh. i. 1 Shushan is described as a bīrāh, probably as being a fortress as well as a royal city. See G. A. Smith, Jerusalem, II. 347.
The Temple is frequently called hēykāl (palace, great house) in the Old Testament, but the normal appellation is simply kabbayith (the house) or such a phrase as the house of the Lord, or again qǒdshěkhā] (Thy sanctuary).
